A couple years back, I was banned by Instagram. Because I happen to know a few people there,1 I got it resolved and my account back online relatively quickly. But I never got an answer for what actually happened.2 A few months later, I found myself banned again. Again, I pinged some people. Again I was reinstated. Again, I got no explanation other than someone – or something – messed up. Again.
While those bans also instantly took out Facebook and Messenger, I was lucky that it left WhatsApp alone. Because, living in Europe, I'm forced to run a lot of my actual life through WhatsApp because it's the service many people rely on here as their primary messaging service. Boy, it would suck if I was banned from WhatsApp.
As I just learned first-hand tonight.
Yes, that's right, for a third time in as many years, I've been banned by Meta. What for? Do you really have to ask? Nobody knows. My suspicion is that it's directly tied to the claiming of usernames on WhatsApp, which Meta opened up yesterday. After I claimed mine, it seemingly logged me out of my other active instances. And when I went to log back in... boom.3 Banned.
No explanation. No warning. Just a note that "This account can no longer use WhatsApp." As with Instagram and Facebook, you can submit a review of the ban and they say they'll look at it and let you know within 24 hours – but no promises. When I did this the first go-around with Instagram, I actually lost the appeal. Why? Nobody knows. Again, it took a personal plea. And I'm insanely lucky to be able to do that. As my replies then and now can attest, many are not so lucky. Many are just banned and never heard from again. At least on those services.
This is bullshit. How do I know this is bullshit? Because it literally happened to me! And, in fact, keeps happening to me! And I'll get it fixed again because I just so happen to know people, which is arguably worse bullshit!
But hopefully this blogpost, perhaps summoning some spirit from my late friend Om Malik, can help light a fire under Meta to actually fix some of this nonsense. I don't know who is minding the ship over there, but my fear is that no one is. That they've automated the shit out of all of these systems. And that they've laid off the people who used to be in charge of such things and stopped it from happening. And that AI is going to make all of this so much worse.
Further, the fact that Meta "hackquired" a company to be able to outsource the management of WhatsApp to India isn't making me feel better about any of this. I'm sure it's unfair, but it also sure looks like Meta is saying that a core social property, a service they acquired with billions of users, is no longer important enough to be run by their core team. [Update: I had written initially that the service would be run out of India, which wasn't clear at first, but apparently CRED founder Kunal Shah will be moving to Meta HQ, which is good, but the main point stands.]
They will, of course, suggest the opposite is true. That because the rest of the world is so important to WhatsApp that it should be run by a "hackquired" entrepreneur from that part of the world. But all I see in the news is that Meta was having a hell of a time monetizing WhatsApp after years and years and they think they found someone who can do that. Also, how have those other "hackquisitions" worked out for everyone? What I see is Meta no longer giving a shit about the product or the experience, just the monetization. They're ready to fucking milk it.
Why? To try to diversify away from their 98% reliance on advertising. Why? To try to get permission from Wall Street to keep spending on AI. Why? To try to finally find "what's next" now that they can no longer acquire entities like Instagram and WhatsApp. And also because AI will help them automate and supercharge the ads that they so heavily rely upon. And also the content moderation that they hate having to pay people to do. You know, like on WhatsApp.
Hold on. I just spoke to a friend who I communicate with primarily on WhatsApp. Apparently, they're sending me messages right now with no indication that I've been banned and that they're not getting through. What the fuck?!
I've fallen too far into the Meta org weeds here. Let me just point out that I run a lot of my household through WhatsApp – including childcare. Imagine if there was an issue with a child and someone was frantically trying to get ahold of me and couldn't because I've been banned? Honestly, should that even be legal?
Sure, I could not use WhatsApp, but again, I sort of have to. I can't force all of Europe to switch over to iMessage – though I would certainly like to right now! And so it feels like that Meta shouldn't just be able to ban you from a service you use to operate your life – especially since it's tied to your phone number. Maybe that's why they're switching to usernames? But fine, ban me, but tell the person trying to communicate with me – potentially about very important things in my life – that they need to reach me some other way. That these messages will not get through to me.
This is fucking insane, Meta.
Honestly, I would love to pull the plug on all Meta services in my life. I get little joy out of them anymore and far more pain and annoyance. It's just not clear to me that anyone at Meta really cares anymore, perhaps ever since the ill-fated name change of the company. They just keep searching for what they want to be next – gambling, GAMBLING! – while constantly neglecting what they actually are.
Update June 30, 2026: Well, as expected, I was un-banned... for about 5 minutes. I went to log-in to WhatsApp on computer and... immediately re-banned!
Update July 1, 2026: Was reinstated this morning. Went to log-in on my computer and surprise: immediately banned again. It's clearly amateur hour over at Meta right now. Or worse, AI hour?
1 I was/am user
#28 of the service, having started using it months before it was actually live to the world. I've been verified for years. Still banned with no pings or warnings. ↩
2 And the wording was pretty wild. So wild that I won't even repeat it... ↩
3 My best guess would be that I use a lot of different devices and because of WhatsApp's clunky authentication process, they may not like seeing so many machines get logged in so quickly? I'm honestly not sure. But it all seems pretty clearly tied to the username situation. Which, if true, is stupid. Who could have known? ↩
